


Distance

by Strigimorphaes



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Healing, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 01:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18906784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strigimorphaes/pseuds/Strigimorphaes
Summary: Going north of the wall with the wildlings, Jon finds simplicity, hope, and also Tormund.





	Distance

**Author's Note:**

> I read someone's joke post on tumblr about how the show basically ends with Jon heading off to marry Tormund and then I wrote this because it had to be done, even if I had to stay up past midnight on a monday to do so. I haven't read the books or done a lot of research I just wanted this to exist.

What made Jon hang his head at the sight of the Wall was not the fact of where he was, rather that he was _not_ south. With every step he was aware of being exiled, deemed unwanted and unfit for the world of politics, for anywhere in the Six Kingdoms. The image that had returned to him over and over as he sailed, rode and walked had been a glimpse of Samwell in his maester-robes, quill in hand. Neither Jon Snow nor Aegon Targaryen would be found in the annals of history from this point onward. He went through lands where people had hailed him as King in the North as an exile from their stories. When Sansa told her children about him - if she had children - would he ever know if she had children? Well, if she did, she would have to end her tale here.

Jon stared up at the ice, the familiar cold settling over his shoulder with more weight than his fur-lined cape. The fort was just down the road. The gates were opening. The horse went on, headed for warm stables and a trough of dirty water. He remembered the place full of black-clad crows, and he thought he would have fit in better with them now that he was a murderer, too. The Night's Watch had always been a place for people who left the stories of their clans and towns, leftover people, loose ends, but now there were no black capes to be seen, only wildlings in cloaks the color of downtrodden snow.

A shout pulled Jon from his thoughts. Tormund waved and made his way down from the watchtower, almost tripping on his way down the stairs whether it be from excitement or a war-wound to his leg. There was a renewed energy and strength in him while Jon did not even possess enough of either to muster a smile.

While a shy wildling girl tied his horse to a post, Jon dismounted, thinking that he might have been flustered around her when he was very young and wildlings were strange and dangerous. Her age and eyes made him remember his first kiss with Ygritte. He entertained the thought that Dany should be his last. After all, his story was over. This wildling girl left him, being too weary to make unnecessary conversation. But Tormund came, pulling Jon into a hug so warm that he could, for just a moment, close his eyes and not feel like he was in the north at all.

"So here you are again," Tormund said.

Jon nodded. "Here I am."

"I thought they'd try to keep you, Snow. If they’d known what was good for ‘em those Westeros lords should've begged you to lead ‘em. Begged on their grubby knees!"

"It didn't end like that."

Tormund snorted. "Well, I can _see_ that, can't I?"

Not wanting to explain his sentence, Jon averted his gaze so that his eyes didn't meet Tormund's. Instead, he saw so many other things clearly in the pale sun: The way frost streaked through Tormund's hair, the way people behind him returned to what they had been doing before Jon arrived to disturb them, how there was hope in them. Hope made them gather firewood and water and fix clothes and thaw frozen meat for the next meal. They were packing, preparing, piecing together a tomorrow.

Noticing Jon's glances, Tormund gestured towards the activity in the courtyard and said, "We've been thinking, us wildlings. With the Night King gone, we can go north again."

"Back?" was Jon's only reply.

"Back. Maybe you too. A bunch of us are gonna be very disappointed if you don't. We've fallen for your dog while you were gone."

Tormund motioned for him to follow, and they went along the stables to where the white direwolf was waiting. At the sight of Ghost, Jon let out a gasp, recognising the way the icy air filled his lungs when he breathed in deeply. He stifled his reaction soon enough (that, too, was something his body remembered from when he had first been made a crow), but there was nobody but Tormund around who took notice anyway, caught up as they all were in hoping and waiting for the march.

 

On the Westerosi side of the wall, there was no sky, only the sheet of ice. No sky, but plenty of earth: The hard, frozen soil, the black mud clinging to your boots, the dirt showing through the snow, the land visible when you looked back over your shoulder and thought (despite knowing better) about the hearth, home, kin and country you had left behind.

On the northern side of the wall, when Jon rode across the plain, there was only sky. Grey clouds. He couldn't take his eyes off them. Tormund looked at him with concern, asking quietly, "What do you see?" in a tone suggesting he expected Jon had spotted some danger.

"I've been up there," Jon replied. "Almost to the clouds.”

"Whether you’ve been there or not, they still make the same snow."

Jon couldn't argue with that.

"Not to mention the hail," Tormund continued. "And the fucking rain."

"But it's not raining arrows." Jon clenched the reins a little harder.

He turned his attention to the ground where the tree line was a distant black band. For the first time in his life he looked at the trees without fearing that the dead would be hiding in the shadows. His shoulders relaxed. The wildlings carried on a wordless conversation as they walked, one made of hands shifting their grip on spears to use them as walking sticks instead of weapons, of eyes no longer keeping watch but watching out for one another, and the sound of a set of cooking utensils clinking with each step it's owner took gave the triumphant message that they did not need to be silent as they went back to their woods.

"How do you think it'll be?" Jon asked.

"Cold and hard and meager," Tormund said, delivering the words with a sense of resignation that was somehow not hopelessness. It was simpleminded acceptance of the world, further softened as he winked and added, "Except for the nights. You'll have an easy time with the ladies, I'll tell you… What, can't I even get a chuckle out of you?"

"You've still got plenty of miles to try."

"King's Landing must've been bleak, eh?“

“And I’ve just had to take the vows again.”

"Heh. What were they? Take no wife, father no children..." Tormund murmured into his beard, the looked back at Jon. "None of your founder-crows ever see the loophole in that?"

"Suppose not." Jon sat up straighter, sighed. "But why care about the Night's Watch anymore?"

"That’s the spirit. I don't see a crow when I look at you, you know. Not anymore. I just see Jon Snow, the man who fought at Winterfell when we killed the dead! A man who stared down a dragon!" The intensity in Tormund’s eyes did not falter for second. "And a man who didn't fuck off to be fancy somewhere down in the warm countries, but came back to what matters. The wild, the north. Back to freedom with all its smells and sounds and dirt and life."

Jon moved his hand to the side of his horse's neck, feeling the muscles moving under its skin. The wind was picking up. He could smell the frost, the pine needles, Ghost. He saw the dirt. Looked back over his shoulder, saw the wildlings.

Tormund was getting lost in his own words, at times not entirely coherent, but the sentiment was coming clearly through. "These people know we're gonna starve some days, and it's gonna be dark, but we're not going to go south to squat behind your stone walls while your lords and ladies get ready for the next war. We're gonna build fires and a couple of fences and get some soft furs to lay on. And something for the direwolf, too." He fell silent for a moment. "I think he might need a hut all of his own."

Jon felt pain when his dry lip split and realised why a moment later. He had smiled. He let himself fall into the rhythm of the animal carrying him as the trees came nearer, as the Wall receded behind him, as the sky grew ever wider. It occurred to him that Tormund had begun to speak with a _we_ that might not mean all the wildlings, but something more exclusive.

 

They took it one day at a time, and after a while Jon had lost track of the weeks. Their pace was slow but steady. They navigated not by roads, but by creeks, rivers and certain sacred trees, finding old campsites and more fortified settlements all abandoned or destroyed. Unease had settled over these places like the white fog in the morning, but Tormund made it his task to go first ahead, sword drawn despite there being no danger, and where he had gone others went more easily. His laugh, which had been a bit too loud for Winterfell's hall, was right in these empty places, filled the space between frozen footprints and white branches above. He carried himself as if he would not yield even if another white walker came out of one of the tattered, empty tents. Jon walked behind him.

Jon was as busy as he liked, often finding a hunting party that wanted him to tag along or a heavy pack to carry. He feared that he would be asked about the things he had seen and done, but the people he walked with had their eyes fixed on the path in front of them, and anything south of Winterfell might as well be another world, another life. For now, they had to focus on getting through the hours until night fell again.

 

One day they built a fire pit. This meant permanence. Stones were selected, firewood was gathered, and by evening the first foundations of the first house was built.

"This isn't a bad place to settle," Tormund said, warming his hands by the fire, his fire.

 “As long as you like it.”

They had not yet built a roof, so Jon could see the stars if only he laid his head back. On the dragon’s back, Jon had felt incredibly high up, but he had not been anywhere close to them. He focused on the light from the flames.

"How about you?" Tormund asked.

Jon shrugged.

"Your wolf caught a hare today. _He_  likes it here."

"Good."

"But there'll be other wolves out there. I expect you to keep those away, you know. It'll earn you a nice place to sleep right here where it's cozy by the fire."

"I've learned to sleep anywhere, anytime. I won't need cozy. Tent’s fine."

"Suit yourself, I'll take it. Though you're still welcome if you want." The last words were said like a joke but left lingering long enough to matter. Jon blinked twice thinking he'd misunderstood, but then returned to warming his hands in silence, listening to those whispering, complaining, laughing, singing, snoring in the camp around them.

By the time most were silent Jon slept in a tent with Ghost by his side. He woke a few times during the night, first because of a dream that came to him less and less often, but still more than he'd like - fire and blood and last words in King's Landing, Dany and a rain of ash. Afterwards he opened his eyes whenever Ghost moved or a sound, almost any sound in the distance, seemed for a moment like a threat.

Then he woke at last to the morning light and Tormund's voice on the other side of the tent. He could see the man's silhouette moving as he gestured, entertaining three shorter shadows. The kind of grown-up-before-their-time-children war and danger makes of boys who suddenly find themselves holding torches and spears, but who were now listening intently.

"And you know what else Jon Snow did? He - rode - a dragon!"

"I think I heard it when we were hiding," one of the listeners said, and he imitated its roar.

"It was gigantic," added another.

"Yes," Tormund continued, "and he was there on its back."

Jon exited the tent, finding Tormund sitting on a rock with the children in a half-circle around him. The man looked up at Jon, unsurprised, as if he had expected him to listen in.

"Now he's here," Tormund said, getting to his feet and putting an arm around Jon's shoulder. "Not just in stories, eh? Flesh and blood."

"He's here and he's hungry," Jon replied. He took a deep breath of the morning air, brushed ice from the mantle of his coat and focused on the important things: He needed breakfast, he had a wolf to feed, and he would get through the day and end it sitting by the fire. He would be cold and wet, no doubt, but -

Tormund pulled a hatchet from his belt and said, "There's some gruel in the pot still. Then we go hunting."

"Then we go hunting," Jon replied, and in his head he added _then we go on_. There was more life waiting than would be contained in the history books anyway.

 

When they left the woods and were alone with the sky and the distance to the stars still visible in the morning Jon fell silent and Tormund told him not to think too much. Jon took his advice and gave in return the only thing he had to offer: The smile he had kept away from the world since the last time he felt happy with Dany. He did not have to worry about the opinions of people on the other side of the Wall, so he worried about himself the way a wounded animal does when it feeds itself and sleeps and lives for the sake of living despite the pain deep-set in its body.

There was a pain in him, but there was a dull pain in everyone here, if not from loss then hunger or blisters or coughs. Still, they told their own stories while they wandered. Jon found himself cold and wet and was already used to meagre food, but he was alive and more often than not within earshot of Tormund's laugh or with the man's heavy hand on his shoulder.

One day Jon laughed, too.


End file.
